A recent edition of the New York Times ran a feature about how last year's forecasts of an eBook era were premature. It quoted publishers and online bookstores who said that only the very few best-selling electronic editions have sold more than a paltry thousand copies, and most sell far fewer. Only a handful of have generated enough revenue to cover the few hundred dollars it costs to convert texts to digital formats.

The NY Times pointed out that a year ago you would have been forgiven for thinking the print book was about to go the way of the dinosaurs - such was the hype surrounding eBooks. Jack Romanos, President of the Simon & Schuster division of Viacom, for example, announced to the press: "We believe the eBook revolution will have an impact on the book industry as great as the paperback revolution." Now he says they were "too early adapters" and that "we were the early birds who went out to catch the early worms but there weren't many."

So was the NY Times article right? Were last year's forecasts of an impending eBook era too optimistic?

It all depends on how you look at it.

The Real eBook Revolution
In a statement last week, DCL president Mark Gross said that the real eBook revolution is not in the bestseller market, but in technical reference manuals and educational materials.

"What people forget is eBooks were going strong before they were called eBooks and they went on to sweep into many aspects of business and publishing," he said. "Most of this has gone unnoticed by the media. Probably because it has been a kind of back door revolution. To cite one example - print law books are just about gone. People don't use them in law firms anymore. It's all electronic books or online. A revolution has occurred, but no-one's noticed."

eResearch Tools
Clearly eBooks - in the sense of the commercial market - have yet to take off. But what might best be described as ePublications - technical manuals, reference and educational materials - are becoming more and more pervasive. In the medical field, electronic journals are the preferred form for many doctors and scientists today. And journalists and writers now tend to do their research online - subscribing to online libraries such as Electric Library, which offers access to articles from leading newspapers, magazines, books and periodicals from around the world.

Many IT professionals subscribe to companies like Books 24x7, which provides electronic access to the full content of top books, journals, and reports related to today's technology. And the great bastion of research and reference - the encyclopedia - has not existed in print form for many years (although the Encyclopedia Britannica recently announced it will be bringing out another print edition).

Bookless College
A number of educational institutions are considering dropping print textbooks altogether. The University of Phoenix, for instance, is planning to phase out traditional textbooks and become a "bookless college". Many students returning to the University this fall won't be carrying books in their backpacks at all. Instead, they will download digital textbooks, multimedia simulations, and PowerPoint presentations on to desktop PCs and portable eBook readers.

"Delivery of course materials electronically will free us from the rigid ways that students get their materials, which are lectures and textbooks," stated Dr. Adam Honea, Dean of the College of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Phoenix.

Changing the Foundations
So while the NY Times was correct in stating that eBooks (in the commercial sense) have not lived up to the hype, it was wrong about ePublications in general - which every day are replacing their print counterparts.

This being the case, we at DCLnews editorial would ask mainstream media to take a look at the real eBook revolution that's happening under our noses. It may be a back door revolution, but it's changing the very foundations of the way we learn and work.

DCLnews Editorial

Comments and Correspondence to DCLnews@dclab.com

To read the NY Times article which sparked this debate, go to...
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/28/technology/ebusiness/28EBOO.html?searchpv=day07&
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